I recently acquired some USGI style magazines. The magazines were Brownells branded and “3rd generation” (light brown colored and non-tilting follower). One note about the followers was that the “top round” bulge is on the other side than in magpuls and my previous usgi magazines (gen1 and gen2)

I ran into some problems while test firing the magazines in my tuned competition rifle: the action made some rounds stood up and collision to inside corner of the barrel extions and bolt slipped to the rim. This of course happened on stage 2 in a small weekly competition ( http://youtu.be/ISoByoDOwyY?t=16s )

Special Squad took part in Pikijärventie 2015 which was an SRA competition with 7 stages. The stages were well built and adequately challenging without being too complicated or memory games. The theme was “Operation Overlord” (Allied code name for Battle of Normandy). Stage descriptions in Finnish, with pictures

Stage 1 was a “sniper stage” with targets from 200 to 500m and allowed to be shot with a larger caliber rifle including a proper scope. The used targets were Jasters, a type of electronically functioning (reset, set up/down) large metal sheets. The organizer provided a .308 AR with a Leica scope, free of charge. Only one of us was able to shoot all 6 of the targets (200, 300, 2×385 and 2x500m) with the help of his own and familiar AR-10..

Stage 2 had a tank prop and it was nice and fast shooting with some close-up papers and 6 Jasters in a little distance. Stage 3 was a pistol stage with some paper targets and four poppers that were required to be shot strong hand only. Stage 4 had a very slow sledge that was activated from front of the stage, by the sandbags.

Stage 5 was nice variation from most of the stages we have shot. It simulated being stuck in a tree with a parachute! On stage 6 there was a Sig made AR-15, provided by organizer and readily set up with four rounds in the mag. In start you had to rack, shoot two papers, make safe and leave the rifle, continuing with pistol. Stage 7 was sort of a run and gun with shotgun, requiring minimal 16 shots.

We had two team entries, one for open (avoin) and one for standard (vakio). In combined results the open team won and standard team came second. Individually we won the lady category, had second on standard division and third on open.

I got a new Chiappa firing pin which (as described in previous posts) is not very good as it is: fat striker head, does not protrude for proper contact with the hammer. So off to the range for test fire and some “gunsmithing” i.e. filing the pin into the place.

From top: the enchanded (broken) pin, new Chiappa pin and the old (broken) Chiappa pinFiring pin evolution: Some light strikes with the fat pin, going down to the sharpened pin and also some duds

In the beginning I got a lot of Failure-to-Fires (FTF) which was sort of a good thing as I noticed that there was some problems with the extraction of rounds that had been deformed, i.e. the non-fired rounds extract fine, but the ones that have been hit with the striker did not always extract.

It still appeared that there might be some contact between the weight behind the bolt and possibly the hammer was also touching the slide rail (wear on the side of the hammer). So I once again filed the weight and also did a little polish/dremel on the bolt rail where the hammer might be touching.